The Hangover is a
comedy film directed by
Todd Phillips, written by
Jon Lucas and produced by
Todd Phillips and Daniel Goldberg. The movie
was made for
Warner Bros. Productions and made by
Legendary Pictures. The film stars
Bradley Cooper,
Ed Helms,
Zach
Galifianakis,
Justin Bartha, and
Heather Graham.
The main
plot follows four friends who travel to Las
Vegas
for a bachelor party,
only to wake up the next morning not remembering a thing and
missing the groom, whose wedding is scheduled to occur the next
day. The film was released in North America on June 5, 2009,
to critical praise and box office success.
Plot
Doug
(Justin Bartha) is about to be married
to Tracy (Sasha Barrese), and his
friends — Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu
(Ed Helms), and soon-to-be brother-in-law
Alan (Zach Galifianakis) — take
him to Las
Vegas for a bachelor
party. Tracy's father lends them his car, a vintage
Mercedes convertible for the
trip.
The
four get a villa at Caesars Palace
hotel and casino, then sneak onto the roof and
toast to the night ahead. The next morning, the three
groomsmen wake up in the suite with no memory of the previous
night, and realize that Doug is missing. Clues abound: the suite is
in severe disorder, a tiger is in the bathroom, a baby is in the
closet, Stu is missing a tooth, one of the suite's mattresses is
impaled on a statue outside, Phil is wearing a hospital bracelet,
Stu has an $800 ATM receipt, and a valet brings them a stolen
police cruiser they dropped off the night before.
While retracing their steps, a doctor at the hospital informs them
that they had traces of
roofies in
their blood, explaining their memory loss, and that they came from
a wedding. They find the chapel, and learn that Stu, despite
planning to propose to his controlling girlfriend Melissa, married
a stripper named Jade (
Heather
Graham), the mother of the baby in the closet. On the parking
lot, they escape an attack by two armed Asian gangsters who beat up
the police car yelling "where is he?". Confused, the men visit
Jade's apartment and return the baby, but are taken by surprise and
arrested for stealing the police cruiser. Phil negotiates their
release in exchange for the three groomsmen "volunteering" as
targets for a
taser demonstration. They then
retrieve the Mercedes from an impound lot and discover a naked
Asian man in the trunk. The man attacks them and runs away, and
Alan admits to spiking their drinks the night before with what he
thought was
ecstasy, but realizes the drug
dealer must have sold him roofies instead. They return to the hotel
and find former boxing champion
Mike
Tyson in their room, who was looking for his stolen tiger.
Tyson knocks out Alan and orders them to return the pet to his
mansion. They drug the tiger with roofies and transport it in the
Mercedes, but before they reach Tyson's mansion, it wakes up and
destroys the car's interior. Tyson plays security footage of the
groomsmen's activities from the night before in an effort to help
them locate Doug.
Resuming their search, the three are confronted by the thugs, who,
as it turns out, are led by the naked man they found in the trunk
of their car, Leslie Chow. According to Chow, the groomsmen have
$80,000 of his money, which they accidentally took the night
before. Chow demands it back in exchange for Doug, whom he has
kidnapped. Unable to find the money, Alan uses his knowledge of
card counting to win it playing
blackjack. The money is repaid, but Chow
had kidnapped a different Doug, who turns out to be the drug dealer
who sold Alan the roofies. After a conversation with the Doug the
drug dealer, Stu remembers that hotel windows do not open in Las
Vegas; he
infers that the
mattress on the statue must have been thrown from the roof, that
the group must therefore have been on the roof at one point, and
that they likely locked a sleeping Doug there as a prank. Rushing
back to the hotel, they find him with less than four hours before
the wedding. Stu and Jade agree that they cannot remain married,
but promise to meet the following weekend to see what develops
between them. Jade also reveals that Stu had pulled out his own
tooth on a dare from Alan. As they rush home and make it to the
wedding, Doug discovers he has Chow's $80,000 worth of casino chips
in his pockets. Doug marries Tracy, and Stu breaks up with Melissa.
As the reception ends, Alan reveals a digital camera he discovered
in the back seat of the Mercedes chronicling the events they were
unable to remember, and the four agree to look at the pictures only
one time before destroying the evidence.
Cast
Alan, Stu, and Phil.
- Bradley Cooper as Phil Wenneck, a
schoolteacher bored with married life and the groom's best
friend.
- Ed Helms as Stu Price, a dentist and
friend of the groom with a strict and controlling girlfriend.
- Zach Galifianakis as Alan
Garner, the socially awkward, soon to be brother-in-law of the
groom
- Justin Bartha as Doug Billings,
the groom
- Heather Graham as Jade,
a stripper and single mother who marries Stu
- Sasha Barrese as Tracy Garner, the
bride
- Rachael Harris as Melissa, Stu's
tight-leash girlfriend. Harris previously co-starred with Helms on
The Daily Show.
- Jeffrey Tambor as Sid Garner,
father of the bride.
- Bryan Callen as Eddie Palermo,
owner of the "Best Little Wedding Chapel"
- Rob Riggle as Officer Franklin.
- Cleo King as Officer Garden.
- Ken Jeong as Leslie Chow, a small
effeminate Las Vegas gangster who demands his lost prize
money.
- Mike Epps as Black Doug, a drug
dealer.
- Logan Hoover as "Carlos", Jade's
baby who's real name turns out to be Tyler.
Cameos
- Mike Tyson as himself
- Todd Phillips as Mr. Creepy. The
director of The Hangover appears briefly in an elevator;
he sports a moustache, wears sunglasses, and is accompanied by a
woman.
- Mike Vallely as Neeco, the high
speed tuxedo delivery man
- Wayne Newton as himself, in photo
slide show
- Carrot Top as himself, in photo slide
show
- Dan Finnerty and The Dan Band, the wedding band
- Lucinda Jenney in a non-speaking
appearance paying tribute to her role as "Iris" in Rain Man (1988). As the groomsmen approach the
blackjack table, the camera pans across Jenney, whose dark blue,
rhinestone-accented dress is identical to the one she wore as
Iris.
Production
Writing
The plot was reportedly inspired by a real-life event that happened
to Tripp Vinson, a producer friend of
The Hangover
executive producer Chris Bender. Vinson had gone missing from his
own Las Vegas bachelor party, blacking out and waking up "in a
strip club being threatened with a very, very large bill [he] was
supposed to pay".
The original script written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore sold to
Warner Brothers for more than 2 million dollars. The story was
about three pals who lose the groom at his Vegas bachelor party and
then must retrace their steps to figure out what happened. The
script was then rewritten by Jeremy Garelick and director Todd
Phillips, who added Mike Tyson and his tiger, the baby, and the
police cruiser. The
Writers
Guild of America did not permit their work to be credited due
to what Phillips described as an "insane" and "nebulous" set of
rules.
Filming
Fifteen
days of filming occurred in Nevada
. The
fictitious "Best Little Wedding Chapel" was filmed at 1236 S. Las
Vegas Boulevard.
A few of the driving scenes were filmed along
a stretch of California Interstate
210, near the cities of Rialto
and San Bernardino
.
Helms said filming
The Hangover was more physically
demanding than any other role he had done, and that he lost eight
pounds while making the film. He said the most difficult day of
shooting was the scene when Mr. Chow rams his car and attacks the
main characters, which Helms said required many takes and was very
painful, such as when a few of the punches and kicks accidentally
landed and when his knees and shins were hurt while being pulled
out of a window. Helms's missing tooth was not created with
prosthetics or
visual effects, but is naturally occurring:
Helms never had an adult
incisor grow, and
got a dental implant as a teenager which was removed for
filming.
Phillips tried to convince the actors to allow him to use a real
taser until Warner Brothers lawyers stepped in.
Regarding the explicit shots in the final photo slide show in which
his character is seen receiving
fellatio in
an elevator, actor Zach Galifianakis confirmed that a prosthesis
was used for the scene, and that he had been more embarrassed than
anyone else during the creation of the shot. "You would think that
I wouldn't be the one who was embarrassed; I was extremely
embarrassed. I really didn't even want it in there. I offered
Todd's assistant a lot of money to convince him to take it out of
the movie. I did. But it made it in there."
The scenes involving animals were filmed mostly with trained
animals. Trainers and safety equipment were digitally removed from
the final version. However, some prop animals were used, such as
when the tiger was hidden under a sheet and being moved on a
baggage cart. Such efforts were awarded with an "Outstanding"
rating by the
American
Humane Association for the monitoring and treatment of the
animals.
Casting
Actors Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper were all
casual acquaintances before
The Hangover was filmed, which
Helms said he believed helped in establishing a rapport and
chemistry between their characters. Helms credited director and
producer Todd Phillips for "bringing together three guys who are
really different, but really appreciate each other's humor and
sensibilities". Helms also said the fact that the story of the
three characters growing closer and bonding informed the friendship
between the three actors: "As you spend 14 hours a day together for
three months, you see a lot of sides of somebody. We went through
the wringer together, and that shared experience really made us
genuine buddies".
Us Weekly reported that
Lindsay Lohan turned down the role of Jade,
which eventually went to Heather Graham, because the
screenplay "had no potential". The article
claimed that Lohan's agent "tried hard to get
Phillips to consider her, and when he finally
agreed, Lindsay said she didn't like the script".
Release
Marketing
The film had a marketing budget of $40 million.
The film had several cross-promotions and corporate partners.
The hotel
Caesars
Palace which featured in the film and their corporate
parent Harrah’s Casino Hotels
offered a special Hangover package deal. Hangover
cure
Drinkin
Mate ran a promotion offering a free trip to Vegas for whoever
sends in the best Vegas story. Fast food restaurant
White Castle and skincare company
Peter Thomas Roth also ran
promotions.
Box office
The Hangover proved to be an overwhelming financial
success. On its first day of release, the film drew $16,734,033 on
approximately 4,500 screens at 3,269 sites, beating out the big
budgeted
Land of the
Lost — the other major new release of the weekend — for
first day take. Although initial studio projections had the
Disney/
Pixar film
Up
holding on to the #1 slot for a second consecutive weekend, final
revised figures, bolstered by a surprisingly strong Sunday showing,
ultimately had
The Hangover finishing first for the
weekend with $44,979,319 from 3,269 theaters, averaging $13,759 per
venue, narrowly edging out
Up for the top spot, and more
than doubling the take of
Land of the Lost, which finished
third with $18.8 million. The film beat even Warner Bros. own
expectations — which had anticipated it would finish third behind
Up and
Land of the Lost — benefiting from
positive
word-of-mouth and critical
praise, and a generally negative buzz for
Land of the
Lost.It stayed at #1 in its second weekend grossing another
$32,794,387, from 3,355 theaters for an average of $9,775 per
venue, and bringing the 10-day cume to $104,768,489.
As of November 23, 2009, it has grossed $277,162,304 in the United
States and Canada, making more than six times its opening as the
opening weekend made up only 16.23% of the total gross. It also
made an additional $182,100,366 in international markets, for a
total worldwide gross of $459,262,670, making it the sixth highest
grossing film of 2009 so far, as well as the highest-grossing
R-rated comedy ever in the United States (second when accounting
for inflation), surpassing a record previously held by
Beverly Hills Cop for almost 25
years. Out of all R-rated movies, it is the third highest grossing
ever in the U.S., behind only
The Passion of the Christ and
The Matrix
Reloaded.
Critical reception
The Hangover has received primarily positive reviews. It
holds a 78% positive response rating on review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes, based on 193 professional
reviews, with the consensus that "with a clever script and
hilarious interplay among the cast, The Hangover nails just the
right tone of raunchy humor, and the non-stop laughs overshadow any
flaw." Film critic
Roger Ebert gave it
three and a half stars out of four, stating "Now this is what I'm
talkin' about.
The Hangover is a funny movie, flat out,
all the way through. Its setup is funny. Every situation is funny.
Most of the dialogue is funny almost line by line."
Although widely critically praised, many critics have noted the
weak character development, especially in its female characters.
Ebert, despite his praise, writes "I won't go so far as to describe
it as a character study" but that the film is more than the sum of
its parts - parts that may at first seem a little generic or
clichéd, since many other films (such as
Very Bad Things) have already explored
the idea of a weekend in Vegas gone wrong. Critics also complained
about racial stereotyping, in particular the Asian gangster.
Music
The score for the movie was composed by
Christophe Beck.The movie featured around 20
songs, consisting of music by
Kanye West,
Dyslexic Speedreaders,
Danzig,
The Donnas,
Usher,
Phil
Collins,
The Belle Stars,
T.I.,
Wolfmother and
The Dan Band, who tend to feature in
Todd Phillips movies as the
inappropriate, bad-mouthed wedding band. The Dan Band also has a
version of
50 Cent Hit single "
Candy Shop".
Right
Round by
Flo Rida is played over the
closing credits.
Soundtrack
- "It's Now Or Never" -
El Vez
- "Thirteen" - Danzig
- "Take It Off" - The Donnas
- "Fever" - The Cramps
- "Wedding Bells" - Gene Vincent and
His Blue Caps
- "In the Air Tonight" -
Phil Collins
- "Stu's Song" - Ed Helms
- "Rhythm And Booze" - Treat Her
Right
- "Iko Iko" - The Belle Stars
- "Three Best Friends" - Zach Galifianakis
- "Ride The Sky II" - Revolution Mother
- "Candy Shop" - Dan Finnerty and
The Dan Band
- Additional songs
Home media
The Hangover will be released on
DVD,
Blu-ray and
UMD on December 15, 2009.
Sequel
Before the release of the film,
Entertainment Weekly revealed that
Warner Bros. are already planning a sequel for the film.
Variety later reported
in July 2009 that production on
The Hangover 2 will begin
in October 2010 for a
Memorial Day
weekend 2011 release, following the same production schedule used
for the first film.
References
- www.aveleyman.com/FilmCredit.aspx?FilmID=15562
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/locations
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/movies/31itz.html
-
http://www.moviemarketingmadness.com/blog/2009/06/03/movie-marketing-madness-the-hangover/
- 'Up'
maintains No. 1 box-office altitude with $44M (AP) Yahoo!
Movies
-
http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic/mpaa.htm?page=R&p=.htm
- The Hangover at what-song
- The Hangover: Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack at Amazon.com
- http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Hangover-Blu-ray/5153/
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Timeline
Search
